


Vulnerability

by lunadiane



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M, First Kiss, Guilt, Gunshot Wounds, Hospitalization, Human Outsider (Dishonored), Hurt/Comfort, Love Confessions, Post-DotO, emily tells the outsider 'i care about you you piece of shit', that goooood shit babey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-17
Updated: 2019-10-17
Packaged: 2020-12-21 00:34:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21065819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunadiane/pseuds/lunadiane
Summary: It was meant to be a day of hope and triumph.The Outsider, who had existed for over four thousand years, now lay dying by a single bullet three years into mortality.





	Vulnerability

It was meant to be a day of hope and triumph. 

The sea air whipped hair about faces, picking up Emily’s light slate coat once she stepped out of the carriage. Her tight coil of hair around her head only held together by virtue of the inordinate amount of pins and grease worked into her tresses by her stylist. She smiled, maybe there was merit in installing the wind turbines of Karnaca in Dunwall after all. That could be the second phase of the energy transformation.

The Isles could not subsist on whale oil forever. Pods were increasingly scarce, the whales themselves becoming smaller the more they were captured and slaughtered. Leviathans lived and grew over centuries, and the devouring industries and energy needs of the Empire cut short many of their lifetimes before they reached their truly gargantuan sizes. As a result, the oil harvested from them dwindled. The Empire was climbing an increasingly steeper hill while shooting themselves in the foot, and it was only a matter of time before it all ran out and they plummeted back into an age without electricity and technology. 

Emily was loath to admit it, but the coup had its benefits. Seeing the wind turbines of Karnaca revived a long-abandoned proposal of her younger days to reduce reliance on whale oil, one made in eagerness to solve the Empire’s problems set before her. Parliament had immediately dismissed it, the faces of the nobles around her twisting into condescension and barely-concealed contempt for the naive, idealistic girl-empress she had been. She had learned that selfish greed often undid any good intentions before they led to actual constructive work, and, after years of frustration, eventually succumbed into ambivalence and complacency.

But she now had twelve years’ worth of experience and the defeat of a coup under her belt, and the ruined city Delilah left behind was a clean slate with little public resistance against her ideas. Karnaca had wind, but Dunwall had waves. Three years’ worth of work had come to fruition in the first generator dam to be completed, harnessing the currents to power a few districts of the capital. It was a small start, but Emily was confident in decades of more construction to come. 

The lights of Dunwall’s coastal district had already been successfully lit by the waves for the past few weeks, and she was to officially open the dam today.

Teal and gold Kaldwin banners billowed from every lamppost and the streets had been swept clean for the occasion. Crowds, held back by rope barricades and lines of guards, began to clap and shout her name as she emerged. She’d bolted past the same cobblestones beneath her feet a mere handful of years ago, her citizens slaughtered and traitors chasing her, intent on drawing her blood with swords and pistols. The sky was clear on that day, as it was now. 

It was a straightforward ceremony, one she had repeated for countless new buildings and events. They toured the facility, fittingly built where a slaughterhouse had once stood, and Emily watched the tides turn the enormous wheels in the main generator room. She greeted and shook hands with the supervisors and workers maintaining the machines, gave a speech off her notes, and cut the silk ribbon fastened around the main entrance to applause and the clicking of silvergraph machines. 

Behind her followed a procession of ministers, the official in charge of the generator, invited nobility and various other guests. Flanking her right was Corvo, as always, and to her left, her Special Advisor on Alternative Energy in a fine nobleman’s coat, tied cravat, and bottle-green vest that brought out his eyes. 

The world knew him as Koschei Moray, quiet yet acerbic aristocratic advisor to the Empress with an ambition of seeing the Isles weaned off whale oil and the whaling industry shut down. The common eye could scrutinize his official papers and only see him as the long-lost heir of the Moray family, while none the wiser that all of it was completely false.

Only three people in the world - Emily, Corvo, and Billie - knew of his previous status as Avatar of the Void. The Moray bloodline, having fallen into obscurity after the death of Preston Moray and subsequent insanity and disappearance of his wife, Vera Moray, together with the absolute power of the Imperial stamp, was the perfect setup to slip the newly human Outsider back into respectable society. 

(“Surely there are other aristocratic families better suited for this purpose.” He had sulked, only for Emily to respond with amusement, “none without any living family whatsoever, noble or common. A new, unknown relative arouses suspicion.”)

Curling her fingers around the railing of the gangway of the main generator room, coated in a light spray as the water thundered around them, Emily glanced at the Outsider and felt pride and pleasure ripple through her at the slight smile on his face. 

The opening ceremony was meant to close after the cutting of the ribbon, but Emily lingered awhile at the docks to speak to journalists and answer questions. 

“Your Majesty, will these generators be able to replace whale oil?” 

“That’s certainly the goal.” Emily replied diplomatically. “It will take years to build enough dams to produce a majority of what whale oil is currently capable of, but I am confident in the abilities of our engineers to refine the efficiency of the generators. We are also looking into importing energy from Karnaca."

After Delilah, it was ever more vital that Emily maintained a close link to the public. A strong presence communicated her dedication to her people as Empress, listening to her citizens’ problems and rectifying them as needed. The distance of her younger, more neglectful days had fed the coup, after all, and Emily was not keen on a repeat that would only cause further disruption and death.

"Your Majesty," another reporter asked amid the rapid scribble of pencils, "Will whaling be eventually abolished despite its prominence in Dunwall's economy and the mainstay of whale meat in our diets?" 

Emily paused a moment to consider. "The current rates of whaling are unsustainable, and whale meat as a byproduct is at an oversupply, creating unnecessary waste." She answered carefully. "We will certainly reduce whaling in the years to come."

"But, Your Majesty, would that not displace many of those working in the slaughterhouses and canning factories?" The reporter pressed on, blue eyes behind round glasses boring unblinkingly into hers. "What will be done to help these unemployed citizens?"

In her periphery she saw someone slink toward her left. Crowds, for all they were unpredictable, fluid creatures, tended to settle outside of the beginning and ending of events once a majority of people had found their places. 

"The new industry of tidal energy will require many workers.” She continued. “Training programs will be provided for citizens to transition from working in whaling to working for the generators, and we have no intention of leaving able-bodied workers jobless without a-"

Time itself slowed to a trickle, and she felt the flare of her Void-enhanced reflexes even with an unblemished left hand. The face of the man in the crowd was half-obscured by his cap pulled low over his eyes, casting a shadow over his snarl, and she only noticed his thin, ratish features from the pistol gripped in his hand.

Emily reached for the hilt of her sword. Each pair of eyes belonging to the group of journalists before her followed her line of sight, save the reporter she was currently speaking to, their calm blue gaze unwavering for a split second longer than everyone else. She knew Corvo was drawing his weapon behind her from the fear twisting the expressions of civilians. Before the coup, he would have the assassin incapacitated in an instant. 

Now she could protect herself. Her blade unsheathed in a silver streak across her face, ready to deflect any bullet fired from the left-facing holster-

_ Bang. _

The shot rang high and thin in Emily’s ears. She flinched into a battle-ready stance, sword in hand, but there was no impact, no collision of a shell against her blade. Time resumed with the reporters ducking and scrambling into the shrieking crowds withdrawing from the barricades, stampedes breaking out as civilians fled to safety. Corvo stepped in front of her, sword drawn at the ready. Guards plunged into the throng.

“Protect the Empress!” Her guard captain yelled, remaining personnel forming a circle around her and those nearby.

She turned at the thud of a body against the cobblestones and screamed.

“Outs- Koschei! Lord Moray!” Emily caught herself just in time, her weapon clattering to the ground as she dropped onto her knees next to his collapsed body. He was clutching at his front, trembling violently, a dark stain spreading over his waistcoat from the burst of red flooding his white undershirt. His fingers came away bloody and glistening, and he stared at them with wide, stupefied eyes before his pale gaze met Emily’s horrified own. 

_ Daud’s red clothes splattered with a spray of Mother’s blood as he tore his dagger from her heart, tossing her aside by the neck like a limp doll.  _

The end of the bullet was like an eyeball leering out from the puncture in his chest, right where his heart was. They didn’t miss her. They were aiming for him.

“No, no, no-” Emily pressed down on his wound as hard as she could with her coat under her fingers, throwing her shoulders into the exertion, which earned her a strangled gasp of pain as the Outsider jerked bodily. Her coat sloughed off her shoulders, a scrap of the grey cloth in her hands steadily warming and filling with blood. She hadn’t even remembered ripping it.

_ Lydia and Wallace, as small as ants from her quarters, fell to the ground as Havelock put a bullet between their eyes. Martin ran toward the makeshift tower, toward her.  _

“The - my - Elixirs!” Emily shouted, gathering the Outsider’s fingers to her own, looking around frantically. “Someone - Father! They’re in my coat!” There was so much blood. The cloth was soaking as the seconds passed. “Help him!”

Corvo darted to her side from his heavy step, and she grabbed the remains of her coat once she heard the clink of glass, pressing that onto the wound with all her strength. He gave a weak, stuttered groan, head tipping back as his eyelids drooped. She could feel his heaving chest, and fought the rising panic at what seemed like a slowing breath, gripping tighter to the Outsider’s fingers. “Look at me.  _ Look at me! _ ” She ordered, mustering as much Imperial steel as possible, and impulsively shoved him to make him cough and spasm, eyes blown wide again. Corvo cupped the Outsider’s chin and poured the elixir down his throat. “You  _ will _ keep your eyes open! Don’t you  _ dare _ go to sleep!” 

_ Alexi frozen as Ramsay stabbed her in the gut, Alexi hunched against the wall in a pool of blood, her skin increasingly cold as she pressed Corvo’s folding blade to Emily and breathed her last breath- _

“E-Emily Kaldw-” He tried to say, but strong, broad hands grasped her shoulders, and Corvo pulled her away from behind to let medical personnel swarm him. 

* * *

They rushed him back to Dunwall Tower and delivered him into the capable hands of Doctor Toksvig. Surgery commenced immediately with the doors shut to all, even the Empress. 

Her ruined coat had disappeared, half of it soaked in the Outsider’s blood when she was pulled away from him, the rest lost to the confusion and uproar. Dressed in her grey waistcoat and white undershirt, her hands cleaned of his blood, she paced relentlessly outside the Royal Infirmary.

The assailant had quickly been captured, a John Hennings who had lost his job at the slaughterhouses, enraged about the shift to alternative energy. He’d blamed it on the man the Outsider now was for ‘polluting the Empress’s mind’ and, strapped into the interrogation chair, screamed about the throne casting its citizens aside in the name of progress. Hennings, once captured, had also immediately implicated a journalist as an accomplice, claiming that she was to serve as a distraction while he took aim at his target. 

Emily’s eyes hardened at the sketch and physical description handed to her. Marie Frost, a familiar young woman she had just met, with red hair and round glasses, had blue eyes that lingered for just a moment too long.

“What do you know about these individuals, Royal Spymaster?” She’d snapped at Corvo with much more hostility than intended, thrusting the papers at him, and he’d reacted accordingly with a raised eyebrow. She was angry, angry that he hadn’t done his job  _ well enough _ and foreseen this, but also angry at herself. 

“Hennings broke the moment he was shown the  _ interrogation tools _ .” Corvo said wryly, his tone full of bitter familiarity. “Said he was paid extra by a Claudia Simmons, businesswoman and owner of Simmons Canning Entreprises where he used to work at. We’ve put a warrant out for her. Maria Frost works for  _ The Merchant's Telegraph,  _ a newspaper that advocates corporate interests in Dunwall." 

Emily examined the silvergraph of Claudia Simmons, a woman with blonde hair, large blue eyes and wearing a fanciful ruffled blouse that made her look more of an aristocratic socialite than a factory owner. If she turned out to have the backing of one of the noble simpletons blocking the move to clean energy, Emily was going to break out a Tyvian Red and drink the entire bottle. 

"Summon her for questioning." Emily ordered, and Corvo nodded before departing. 

John Hennings would be charged for attempted regicide, as well as murder, but Simmons would  _ hang _ .

A maid brought her a new coat, but she took one look at the funerary black and turned it away. Her immediate orders dispatched, Emily sank into the armchairs outside the operating room and tried to focus on paperwork, but she read the same sentence five times and understood nothing. She tried to respond to a letter she’d read yesterday, but her perfunctory attempts at an answer kept devolving into an account of the day’s events, ink splattering as she scribbled down every detail, from Maria Frost’s attempts to block Hennings out of Emily’s sight, her delayed reaction to the shot, livid thoughts regarding the utterly atrocious security of the event that allowed someone to smuggle a pistol into the vicinity of the Empress. 

But guards were just guards, ordinary and fallible. Emily had been marked by the Void, by  _ him _ , made faster than a bullet, and he would have never gotten shot if she had sensed the danger earlier.

The papers crumpled in her hands. She’d failed again. Not as catastrophically as Delilah’s coup but a failure nonetheless, repeating the same mistake that had led to her exile in underestimating her opponents and being blind to the hidden machinations around her. 

She should have been ready for the poison that would surface from her energy reforms. Even after the ruin Delilah left, opposition had crawled out of the woodwork and only strengthened with the restoration of peace. Discord seethed amongst whaling merchants and apprehension from their workers, fearful of being replaced. The majority of parliament voting in favour of her alternative energy bills had gradually thinned, several taking ill with a few dropping dead. An engineer designing the plans for the generator had been fired and convicted after the discovery that he had murdered a loyal supervisor for coin, and to sabotage the project. Nothing in Dunwall ever changed without death or schemes.

Her reforms were already stained in blood, yet she had remained shortsighted, and it was her fault someone close to her was at death’s door. The Outsider, who had existed for over four thousand years, now lay dying by a single bullet three years into mortality.

Emily barked out a startled laugh, gripping her pen with such force that it threatened to snap. A god meant for eternity killed so unceremoniously. The thought was absurd, and she gasped at the hot tears that streaked down her face. Nothing was untouchable in the world she lived in, not even gods, who could be made flesh and cut to make bleed. The Outsider, the one thing she believed constant throughout her tumultuous life, was to be ripped from her, and Emily muffled a sob. 

The silent waiting area outside the Royal Infirmary where she had sat for hours foretold the rest of her life, empty and lonely. Everyone close to her had left, or would soon be. Wyman gone. Alexi dead. Callista missing. Billie dropped the Outsider at her doorstep and disappeared. All she had left was Corvo, whose death she would have to face one day, and him, who could be slipping away as the seconds ticked past. 

Her shoulders shook as she cried, and Emily covered her face at the approach of haltering footsteps. The slim legs of a maid and her sturdy, worn shoes came into sight, before taking several shocked, tentative steps back and turning around to hastily retreat.

_ Idiot _ , she chastised herself. Etiquette commanded that she should only break down in private, as such turmoil was unbefitting an Empress. The maid had scuttled off in embarrassment, but would surely find her friends, or worse still, a reporter willing to pay a meager amount of coin for the juicy gossip of Her Majesty weeping heartbroken over the injury of one of her young male advisors. 

She despised the reality, and the fact that she had thought it, gasping and swallowing to drown her sobs as she frantically wiped her eyes.

Light streamed in through the windows, but she felt immeasurably weary. 

* * *

“Your Majesty.”

A gentle, reluctant shake to the shoulder.

“Your Majesty.”

Doctor Toksvig was standing over her, face blurred. The sky outside the windows was dark, the corridor lit only by the lamps mounted on the walls. She’d fallen asleep outside the Infirmary. Emily wiped her eyes, still stained with tears, and the doctor’s bloodstained gloves came into clear focus.

“How is he?”

“Why don’t you see for yourself?”

The door swung open and Emily entered. None but one bed remained in the infirmary, more grandly decorated than the simple ones she remembered. Elaborate drapes fell from the four columns that rose to the ceiling from each corner, a four-poster even grander than her, the Empress’s, bed. 

Emily came closer with a feeling of trepidation that only increased by the wispy drapes. They were always black, why hadn’t she noticed them? Stone roses, like the ones Delilah covered herself with, began to grow, twisting around the columns and filling the bed, the Outsider’s body dwarfed by all the ostentation around him. 

She reached his side to see him lying with both arms at his sides, dressed in the stiff black coat she used to know him by, with a blade -  _ her blade  _ \- sheathed through his heart, eyes wide and glassy that saw nothing, like those belonging to a bloodfly-eaten victim slumped against a wall in Karnaca, like Mother’s in her nightmares, like Alexi’s,

“No!” Emily cried. She tried to touch him, to fix him, but felt only cold stone as his form began to petrify and disintegrate beneath her fingers, the bed and the roses and the walls splintering. “I’m sorry, I’m-!” She tried to call, but her voice was drowned out by the howl of the Void shrieking  _ your fault, all your fault  _ that rushed up to devour them both, casting her into freefall through the infinite darkness.

* * *

“Lady Emily.” 

Emily’s eyes flew open, sucking in deep breaths of air. Her vision filled with the sideways view of the Royal Physician’s clothes, and she hastily rose from the settee she had been lying on. A woolen blanket, draped over her, fell off her shoulders.

Night had fallen, and the corridors of Dunwall Tower were awash with the golden light of oil lamps. _ It was just a dream. Just a dream. _ Emily breathed heavily, chest heaving. She could see Doctor Toksvig as she really was, the crows’ feet around her gentle, if tired, brown eyes, wisps of greying hair falling out of her bun from exertion, and the nature of stains hidden in the utilitarian navy garments she wore, shorn of her Physician’s apron and gloves. The corners of her mouth were curling up in a slight smile, and Emily’s heart leapt with hope. Perhaps he would be alright-

"Wait," Emily croaked, holding up a hand to silence the Royal Physician before the doctor could open her mouth. The dream could have been a Void-fueled premonition. 

This was the moment that would seal his fate. Fear chilled her hands despite burying them in the blanket, the material gathered in her fists. Throat thick, silence pervaded as the Doctor dutifully awaited instruction from her Empress. 

It took a moment for Emily to gather herself, and to speak even above a whisper. 

“Is he alive?”

Toksvig smiled a full smile, eyes crinkling. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

Relief flooded her like a punch to the gut and Emily sagged, pivoting forward as her eyes slid closed and mouth opened in a moan. “Thank goodness…” She murmured into her hands, trembling as she felt her eyes fill with water yet again. “Thank you.” Emily sniffled, wiping her eyes as she felt the doctor’s warm, reassuring hand on her shoulder. “Thank you for saving him.” 

“Lord Moray is extremely fortunate.” Doctor Toksvig explained. “The bullet just missed his heart, but caused heavy internal bleeding that might have killed him had you not slowed the bleeding. The immediate medical attention he received from your stationed personnel also saved him. He is alive due to your prompt efforts, Your Majesty.”

“Perhaps it should be royal decree to recommend all citizens carry elixirs with them at all times.” Toksvig suggested airily, vindicating Emily’s precautionary measures. With the Empire’s advances in medicine, she would not allow more needless deaths that could be prevented, no matter how dangerous the world still was. 

“That’s an excellent idea.” Emily said, laughing with teary eyes. She felt as if she could finally relax, with the unbearable tension of the day’s events finally broken. “I expect the well-prepared ones already do.”

Despite having been asleep for several hours, exhaustion was beginning to seep back into Emily’s bones with the assurance of his safety. She felt wrung dry, but wholly, entirely jubilant at this piece of happiness she had still been granted. “Well,” Emily announced, pushing the blanket off her lap and standing up, “I again thank you for your work, Doctor Toksvig. It is rather late, and I-”

“Would you like to see him?” 

Emily paused. “See him? Is he not resting?”

“He is, currently.” Toksvig said with twinkling eyes. “But you could see him if you wished, Lady Emily.”

She glanced at the double doors and nodded without hesitation. "Yes, I will. Thank you."

The infirmary had only been established after Emily’s ascension to the throne. Once a sitting room, she was eleven when she had decreed the room be renovated into a Distribution Centre of the Plague Cure after it had been discovered by Piero and Sokolov. The Rat Plague had burned through Dunwall, and her mother had thrown everything she had into attempting to save her citizens. Emily would help every last victim she could. 

After the Plague had been eradicated, it seemed foolish to pack away the medical equipment collected for the Centre and leave them to collect dust instead of continuing to use it. The room was hence converted into an infirmary with an official Royal Physician’s Laboratory, for staff, visitors, and the Royal Family, of course, to receive medical attention whenever they needed it.

Tall windows had been constructed into the external wall of the room to let in fresh air and sunlight, with rows of beds arranged within. At this late hour, the curtains were drawn over nearly all of the infirmary’s windows, save for the one above the single occupied bed that revealed the night sky. The lights were dim enough for sleep, but lit enough that Emily could see the Outsider’s thin, lying form on his cot once she stepped in. 

The lower half of his body was covered with a blanket and his bare chest was wrapped in bandages. Without his valet or the unchanging static of the Void, his short hair sprawled over the pillow his head rested on, some plastered onto one side of his face, and his fringe, meticulously swept to the side each time she had seen him, now fanned out untidily over his forehead. She smiled. The absence of the broad-shouldered coats he liked to wear revealed his narrow shoulders and slender frame. 

Upon his first arrival to Dunwall Tower after the reversal of his deification, he was so pale as to nearly match a sheet of blank paper. The injury left him with a unhealthy-looking pallor, but even that had more colour than his previous corpse-like complexion after millennia in darkness.

Eyes closed in sleep, lips slightly parted, he looked so young, so fragile, nothing like the imposing god he used to be, the vulnerability of the mortal condition proven in how close he’d been to death mere hours ago. Emily, drawing up a chair beside him, watched the tranquil rise and fall of his breathing for several moments before gently curling her fingers around his slackened hand, marveling at their warmth. He was human. He was alive.

Her chest tightened as her eyes filled up yet again, and Emily withdrew to furiously blink back her tears and wipe them away. But he continued to rest, and, emboldened by his hand in hers. she leaned over and delicately raked her fingers through his hair to neaten it. 

He stirred, and she looked down to meet his pale green gaze.

Of course he would choose this very moment to wake up.

Emily quickly looked away, pretending to busy herself with something beyond his sight to hide the sudden flush in her cheeks. She forced herself not to let go of his hand. Saving herself from embarrassment meant not admitting defeat, and he wasn’t even properly awake. She took her seat once more.

“How are you feeling?” She asked as calmly as she could. 

His mouth twisted in a scowl as he peered groggily through scrunched, half-lidded eyes, his brow furrowing deeply. “Like shit.” 

The Outsider’s response was so unexpected and his expression so disoriented that Emily had to laugh. She returned to combing his hair back in place, feeling his thick, yet smooth hair under her fingers. “You’ve just come out of surgery, that’s to be expected. Just lie down and rest.”

He tried to rise but seized up, curling inward in pain. “Be careful!” Emily warned, grasping his shoulders. “You were shot in the chest!” Hands on his chest and back, she guided him back into a lying position, his breaths brief and shallow from the jolt of agony. 

Hair once again disheveled against the pillow, the Outsider glanced downward. “So that is what this is.” He muttered, fingers stroking the gauze wrapped around him with an incongruous fascination, as if he had discovered a new species of fish instead of confronting the cause of his near demise. 

Emily’s brow furrowed. “Do you remember what happened-?” She asked hesitantly. Had the chloroform affected his memories? 

The Outsider took several breaths to steady himself and finally lie still, staring straight ahead. A calm countenance gave his pale eyes, fully open, a prescient clarity that surrounded him in otherworldliness not unlike the one he wore with black eyes. 

“I was shot at the opening of Dunwall’s first tidal generator.” 

She nodded. 

“It was a workman.” He continued, and Emily’s eyes widened. “Possibly someone whose livelihood is threatened by your reforms. Someone who works in the slaughter of leviathans.”

“Did you know he was targeting you?” She snapped, leaning forward, her tone more agitated than she had intended it to be. “If you did, why did you let him shoot you? You could have protected yourself, or alerted the Royal Guard!”

He was silent for a moment. “I didn’t. I can no longer see.” He mumbled almost sheepishly, embarrassed at his lack of awareness after millennia of near-omnipotence. “I glimpsed him when I was shot, and he was wearing workman's clothes.”

“Besides, an event of this nature is inevitable.” He continued, calm and certain as he always was. “There will always be resistance to change, since every old order has its elites profiting off the suffering of others. They will do anything to cut down the revolutionaries threatening the hierarchies that keep them in power.”

Emily scowled, sitting back and folding her arms as his words washed over her. If he knew this, then why didn’t he - She exhaled, the anger fading from her expression. He was right. She knew this endless struggle of power intimately, a permanent fixture shaping her reign and her life - for her life  _ was  _ her reign. She  _ knew _ the importance of the day’s events, and had been foolish not to prepare for the worst. She was still empowered by the Void, Corvo was - well, Corvo, but for all that  _ he  _ had been the Outsider, he was now just human. She had failed to account for his new, terrifying mortality. 

“The assailant is already in custody. One of the journalists acted as an accomplice.” She said quietly. “Unsurprisingly, they’ve been traced back to the owner of a slaughterhouse.” 

“Do not mistake the symptom for the root.” He answered, head turned to match their gazes, and a silent understanding passed between them.

A fresh copy of the  _ Dunwall Courier _ lay neatly rolled up on his bedside table next to a glass pitcher of water and a platter of fruit, no doubt left by a maid.  _ ATTEMPTED ASSASSINATION OF THE EMPRESS AT GENERATOR OPENING _ , the latest edition announced. The headline did not pass Emily’s notice without another pang of guilt that set off a further descent into brooding. The story would tell of a shot that missed her completely and hit a hapless advisor the public had little care for, with no knowledge of the truth. They would tell the tale of a small-minded worker who panicked in his common ignorance and recklessly attacked the Empress for it, while the true machinations behind it all remained hidden. How myopic they were. How self-centered she was to think so highly of herself, to care only for her own welfare, to forget how an Empire could fall with a few key deaths. An Empress was nothing without her council. 

“It’s not your fault.” He promptly said, as if he heard her thoughts. 

“I should have been prepared.” She answered bitterly. “I should have been better. I  _ need  _ to be better.”

The Outsider tried to sit up again and immediately contorted, gritting his teeth as he hunched over. “What did I tell you?!” Emily cried in exasperation, standing to push him back down. “You’ll only make your injury worse. Lie down until you’ve healed!” 

Despite the pain, his features rapidly smoothed back into composure once his head hit the pillow, staring at Emily. 

“You were crying.” He stated. 

Emily paused, letting go of him. “What?”

“Your eyes.” His green eyes fixed onto her brown. “They’re swollen.”

Her jaw worked as she withdrew. Nothing escaped him, even without the aid of the all-seeing Void. Emily hated crying despite how much she did it. She had cried enough after Mother’s assassination and during the chaos of Burrows’ regency, and had vowed never to cry again in her childhood, despite breaking it as recently as minutes ago. 

At her silence, he pressed on. “Why?”

She frowned in perplexity. “ _ Why? _ I was worried!” 

_ About you _ .

“Does it warrant tears?” The Outsider asked, his blank expression teetering between obliviousness and brazenness, and Emily’s incredulous expression hardened, pulling back slightly. Was he - taunting her? He had been privy to millions of minds, he should be able to understand - Three years newly human still left him a long way to go emotionally. 

“I know you don’t like to cry.” His brows knitted, and the pure mystification she saw in him made her heart twist.

“I’m not ashamed of it.” She declared, her expression softening. “You are my  _ friend _ . Of course I would be upset, you could have died!” 

He fell silent, pondering, eyes shifting away from Emily’s furious gaze. “Many have claimed to have me as a friend, or to seek alliance. There was no sentiment in it. They all wanted something in return.”

“I have heard every inflection of despair a human has ever produced. Even now, there are plenty across the Isles crying out in ruin at this very moment. Weathering this constant tumult has made such expressions, I confess-” His eyes, drifting off faraway, flickered back to hers, before looking elsewhere, “empty to me.”

“I remain in the physical realm still, until this mortal body deteriorates on its own in mere decades or is destroyed prematurely by other means. You have a tender heart, but tears are wasted on me, Emily Kaldwin.” He interrupted her outrage by covering her hand with his. “There are others more significant.”

His eyes betrayed no insincerity. It was what he truly, earnestly believed, and Emily clamped her eyes shut, head tilted to the ceiling, trembling with the emotion that swelled within her. Hadn’t she had enough for one day? The heights of pride tumbling down with panic and worry, sinking into despair, buoyed with relief and joy, tempered with guilt, doubt, and confusion (as expected for this infuriating man) and now, frustration - 

“No.” She nearly growled, her palms landing at each side of his head. “No they aren’t, because you’re  _ important to me. _ ”

She could speak to him in the words he loved all day, but Emily was certain they would never help him understand. Cradling his head, she leaned down and – catching a glimpse of his widening eyes – kissed him.

Her lips pressed against his chastely, nothing more, still she felt the warmth they possessed. She felt his hand at her clavicle in disbelief, dilated pupils still staring at her when she pulled away.

“I’m just another Empress,” Emily said, her face and ears burning, fingers brushing over the cut of his jaw, “but I have no regrets for what I feel for you.”

For once, he was speechless, his hair tousled and pale cheeks tinged with pink, and a sated smile spread across Emily’s face. To render the Outsider himself silent, to taste him, was one of the rarest pleasures in the world.

He said nothing even as she drew herself back to her full height, his pale green eyes blinking rapidly as the cogs of his ancient mind turned. It was late.

“Rest well, my lord.” Emily said, before turning to leave. He watched her withdraw, his gaze never leaving her. 

  
  
  



End file.
